On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 12:49 PM, Milind Oka oak445@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
In last month's proceedings, Hon High Court passed an important order to make appropriate changes in School/College curriculum for academic year 2017-18 ( in view of Notification dated 17 June 2014 which advises states to adopt open source on priority)
Government has formed an experts committee for this implementation. The report is expected before 8 March 17. So next date is kept on 31 March 2017.
Another good news is that Prof Kannan of 'Spoken Tutorials' seems to be one of the members in the committee. Prof Kannan, being a strong supporter of open source, has been putting great efforts to promote open source. He himself says that obsolete curriculum is the biggest problem in ICT education. Also he has signed our on line petition for Mandating Open Source. His work will be meaningful if open source is effectively implemented through curriculum. Now we can definitely expect a report from the committee suggesting mandatory adoption of Open Source in Education in strong and clear words. Best wishes to Prof Kannan and his team.
Earlier, Mr Krishnakant Mane and DFF filed a similar PIL in order to have a greater impact of the original petition. The two petitions will now be joined (Probably on 31 March). Original petition is representing students and teachers while Krishnakant is representing Visually impaired students and students in rural areas in particular. Lots of thanks to Krishnakant.
Hon High Court Order on 8 Dec : http://docdro.id/pM73elw
MHRD Notification which High Court Order refers : http://docdro.id/aPc7MSF
-- Regards
Milind
Thank you very much for these updates. It is good to see that initiatives are taken to avoid proprietary software in schools. Children are being accustomed to proprietary software and are unable to migrate to the alternatives later.
I hope the govt. and schools bring this change as soon as possible.